AppGrid: TimeSeries View
An Excel-like view that is ideal for viewing time series data
An Excel-like view that is ideal for viewing time series data
Most companies use Excel or similar for managing their forecasts and budgets. The reason for this is that Excel allows users to create and visualize their time series data in a way that is intuitive.
Specifically, records are arranged in columns and attributes are displayed in rows. Usually, the records are ordered by a date field (ex: budget month) in ascending order. In a budget or forecast, the values for a given attribute (for example: heating costs) sometimes follow a seasonal trend. When we are looking at heating costs, we can clearly see the change in value over time as a result of the attribute being a row value.
We can view time series data in the main view, or in a master/detail relationship displayed in a subview.
Companies who use Salesforce don't manage their budgets or forecasts in the Salesforce app, as it does not provide the same type of intuitive view as Excel or the like. Fortunately, AppGrid does provide this type of view and makes it very easy and fast to migrate this critical business data to Salesforce using our import wizard.
The other challenge is related to creating new budgets or forecasts. Image a budget with 200 items. Creating a new budget using a list view would involve 200 transactions, and you would have no context to inform your choice of values when creating the record. Very unintuitive and labor intensive.
The AppGrid time series view works like Excel. You have the ability to enter all of the data for a budget or forecast in a single transaction, and you can utilize AppGrid functions like drag/copy to quickly enter values for a given attribute or clone records if desired.
Budgets and forecasts are critical and sensitive enterprise data that should not be living in Excel documents. This data belongs in Salesforce with your other enterprise data.
Let's take a tour of the TiimeSeries view features and provide a detailed understanding of how to use the app.
Table of Contents
Overview
The timeSeries grid transposes AppGrid records…rows become columns and columns becomes rows. The order of the transposed rows is defined by the order the selected view columns. AppGrid will automatically sort the transposed columns by the selected transposed column.
Selecting the transpose column
You can choose what column is transposed by selecting a field from the transposed column dropdown in the toolbar. The first row in the transposed data are the values for the transposed column.
Adding records
Click the add record button in the grid toolbar to create a new record. A form is displayed to enter the new record values. Once saved, the transposed data will be recomputed and the grid results updated.
Editing records
Select a record to edit by clicking the column checkbox. Click the edit record button in the grid toolbar . A form is displayed to edit the record values. Once saved, the transposed data will be recomputed and the grid results updated.
Deleting records
Select one or more records to delete by clicking the column checkbox(s). Click the delete record button in the grid toolbar . A delete confirmation is displayed. When confirmed, the records will be deleted and the grid results updated.
Finding records
Type a value into the find textbox in the grid toolbar. All grid cells will be searched for a matching value and the grid records will be filtered to only show those rows with a matching value.
Creating the import file
AppGrid can import transposed data from an Excel file. Note: the AppGrid wizard is not designed to import list data. There are many data import products that can be used for this purpose.
The AppGrid import wizard is designed to import new records only. Updating existing records is not supported.
It is important that the file to be imported has a header row defined. Make sure that the header row contains the values for the transposed column you will be using. In the example below, we are planning to use the Account SLAExpirationDate field so we have date values in the header row.
The first column in each record contains the name of the field in the SObject record. Note: it is possible to define the OwnerId value when importing records. To reduce the potential for import errors, take care that the values in the file to be imported are appropriate for each column type.
Standard Apex validation will occur when the records are imported, including checks for required fields, etc.
See the image below for an example of how this file should be created.
Importing records
AppGrid provides an import wizard that makes it easy to import Excel data into AppGrid. Click the import button in the toolbar to open the import wizard. The first step is to enter the object you want to import data into. In this example we will use Account. Select the column that will be used to tranpose the data.
Click next. Choose the file that contains the data to be imported. Review the detected header row information. This should match the data in your import file. If the data was imported correctly, you should see some sample records displayed.
Click next. The wizard will attempt to match the names of the columns in the import file with the field names of the selected object. Make sure each column has a matched value. If not, select the field from the column selector.
Click next. The preview grid will be displayed. If necessary, you can edit any record values as required. Click the next button to save the records. If successful, the transposed grid will be updated to reflect the new records if the selected query matches any of the new data.
